A House and a Man
by Le Sharp Stylo
Summary: Six years gone by, relative peace has been achieved. Clarke and Bellamy are close friends, and she gets a tour of his newly built home.


_Six years in the future, the Sky People and most of the Grounder tribes have come to live in relative peace. Problems still arise with Nomads from the East. Clarke and Bellamy are both on the council, Clarke being the youngest member at twenty-four. Clarke is also now a doctor, and Bellamy is a captain of the guardsmen. Bellamy has almost finished building his own log house overlooking one of the lakes, and is giving Clarke a tour._

* * *

><p>"Gosh Bel, this is great. You thought of everything-" she walked across the room toward the kitchen area. "Where did you even get all of these cooking utensils and things?"<p>

He gave her a pleased grin. "Here and there. Look, did you see the oven? It's metal- see these knobs here? I rewired an antique 22nd century model that I scavenged, and it works like new." he finished proudly.

She couldn't help smiling. His excitement was infectious. Then a small wave of envy hit her- how wonderful it would be to live in a home, with real, wooden walls, not plastic tent walls. Walls she didn't have to share with the rest of the ark. Nevertheless, she was happy for him- he obviously had worked incredibly hard to build this, and he deserved to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

As Bellamy continued to point out the features of his house, Clarke thought back to when she had first met him. She certainly wouldn't have predicted the arrogant, womanizing convict would become a responsible, hardworking man. A battle-hardened tactician, and a respected leader who helped her negotiate trade agreements with four of the grounder tribes. And now, standing in a beautiful house he had built with his own two hands.

She eyed the large sleeping suite critically. That was one of the best things about earth- so much space. There was a low bed lined with the softest of furs. A stone fireplace was off to the side of the room, and a series of five square windows paned with reinforced glass lined the upper half of the wall behind the bed. It provided beautiful natural light, and faced toward the sunrise.

Clarke shook her head in disbelief. This was by far the nicest home that anybody had built yet. "Good grief Bellamy, your wife, whoever she is, is gonna be one lucky woman." she couldn't help saying. He hadn't been with anybody in years, but she teased him anyway.

"I want that woman to be you Clarke."

Her eyes widened in shock.

"What...?" she floundered for words, wondering if this was some sort of dare or joke that Jasper put him up to. As she looked at his face, she realized he was deadly serious, if somewhat shocked himself that he had let those words slip out.

"I didn't know you felt that way, Bel... I'm just me… and you're _you_." she finished, even less eloquently.

The muscles in his jaw tensed and Clarke recognized him working to keep himself composed.

"It hasn't been that way for a while, Clarke," he sighed. "And I think you already had an idea of that."

"Bellamy, we're such good friends. Why can't we just keep things the way they are?" she pleaded. He was among her closest confidantes, and one of the only people she trusted implicitly. But this: actual _feelings_… it frightened her. She didn't want the mess that came with romantic crap to ruin their friendship. As she looked into his eyes, begging him for something she herself didn't quite know, she already knew the answer.

His eyes were a despairing sort of calm, the passion still underlying. "I can't be a friend to you anymore. Not when I see you all the time. Every damn dream, every thought." he said gruffly.

"This is so... so... unlike you." she said helplessly. But even as the words left her lips, she knew she was being dishonest with herself. She realized he had tried before to tell her this before, she had intentionally ignored that intuition. It was too much, too big. It was _Bellamy_. And just that knowledge seemed more dangerous, more potent than the poison of a grounder arrow.

Bellamy held her gaze and spoke quietly, deliberately. "Sweetheart, it's you. Only you. It's been that way for a while now. I adore the bloody ground you walk on. As I was building this house, all I saw was you and our future children in every room."

_That's odd_, thought Clarke. _My face is wet._ And Bellamy was humbly laying his heart bare to her: it was so strange for him. Bellamy was nothing if not unpredictable.

"I don't know why I'm crying." she said stupidly. Why had his confession suddenly left her an inarticulate, incoherent idiot? It wasn't as if she was in love with him; she was too mature for that sort of thing.

His hand reached up and brushed a tear off her cheek. Gently, so gently. His quiet words, his gentle movements, they belied the passionate ferocity in his eyes; his dark, expressive, beautiful eyes.

And in that moment she understood. He loved her. Not the fickle boyish affection or lust that she had already experienced and put in the past; no, Bellamy _loved_ her, selflessly: like a man loves a woman. It was in everything he did, so glaringly apparent, she wondered at her own obtuseness. It was the way he had given up his spacious sleeping quarters when hers and Abby's had been ruined in the spring floods; the way he fought the council for her ideas to be implemented, risking his own reputation as a junior senator; the way he had protected her mother in the recent nomad attacks; the way he had come to play chess with her everyday when she was in quarantine bay for an entire moon cycle.

It was a revelation that left her with a surprising certainty. She loved him back. He was the man she trusted and respected more than anyone else in the world. And Bellamy would be hers; whether tomorrow or in a year, she knew it would come. He would be hers, and she would be his.

.|.|.

He hadn't meant to spill his feelings like that. As Bellamy looked down at her, he saw her confused face, trying hard to understand. _That's my Clarke._ He felt a hint of sardonic laughter bubbling in him. _I profess love to her like the sod I am, and she stands there logically analyzing the situation. Why the hell did you talk, Blake? Because you're a damned fool, that's why._

Then she began to cry and muttered something. He automatically reached up to brush some of her tears away. Then slowly, she smiled- and the joy in her face was almost blinding. The absolute trust in her eyes. She put her hand over his and squeezed.

Both of his hands went to her jawline, then lightly combed and grasped her hair as he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. He kissed her hard and long and as she sighed into his lips, he decided in that moment, he was the luckiest man on the ground.


End file.
